Abstract
To engage in quality teaching, requires more than just technical skills; it requires the moral capacities to achieve worthwhile aims. We posit teachers need “practical wisdom,” which cultivates teachers’ capacities to conduct themselves purposefully in the moment-to-moment episodes of human interaction by discerning the most useful questions to ask and to employ the most effective techniques to achieve intended aims. Teacher education, then, must nurture the teacher’s ability to discern both what to do and what is worth doing. This is a developmental moral practice, developed over time and situated in the contexts and dilemmas teachers find themselves in.
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- 1.
We would note here the distinction between problems and dilemmas, the latter of which always requires a decision between competing alternative actions, and a discernment of which is the best choice.
- 2.
All proper names used are pseudonyms.
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Schussler, D.L., Murrell, P.C. (2016). Quality Teaching as Moral Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom . In: Chi-Kin Lee, J., Day, C. (eds) Quality and Change in Teacher Education. Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher Education, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24139-5_17
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